


A Ratio of Wits to Wild Geese

by cintra



Category: Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age II
Genre: Attempt at Humor, BFFs, Default Hawke (Dragon Age), F/M, Friendship, Gen, Hijinks & Shenanigans, Nostalgia, Purple Hawke
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-28
Updated: 2017-07-28
Packaged: 2018-12-07 22:36:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,555
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11633355
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cintra/pseuds/cintra
Summary: Shenanigans were what they had called the specific sort of nonsensical and yet entertaining late night adventures that had always been part of their friendship.  Varric had tried to argue that the word was a cliche but nothing came else came close to accurately describing their adventures.





	A Ratio of Wits to Wild Geese

**Author's Note:**

  * For [fortheloveofhawke](https://archiveofourown.org/users/fortheloveofhawke/gifts).



“Varric! I need your help. It’s very important,” Hawke declared as she made a very roguish roll from his windowsill into his room. This was undercut slightly by the fact that she was still slightly intoxicated from having left the Hanged Man only an hour ago and had botched the landing slightly and had to stumble her feet. And also the fact that Varric was awake at his desk looking over some papers instead of sleeping like she expected. She frowned and squinted at him.

“My entrance was a lot more exciting when I imagined you jumping awake from a dead sleep. It's less mysterious if you see me just stumble in through the window.”

Varric had jumped slightly at her grand entrance, though that wasn’t really the sort of satisfaction she was looking for. It just felt like a normal late night in his suite. Something that had become routine and familiar. Hawke was very fond of Varric’s room; it was the best place to sleep when she’d had too much to drink downstairs.

He gave her a look—the look he gave her when he was trying to seem cross with her but was actually charmed by her antics—and set down his papers. “Andraste’s asscheeks, Hawke, we just left the Hanged Man an hour ago. What are you doing here? And what’s with the sudden dislike of using doors?”

“Going through the front where I’d just left would be suspicious,” Hawke replied as she leaned over his shoulder to try and get a look at the papers he was perusing. Something about about unrest in the Hasmal Circle of Magi. Ugh. That ruined her spectacular two hour streak of not thinking about mages and templars. Thanks, Varric. She’d make him buy her an ale for that one when she felt like playing that card.

“So you went through the window to be inconspicuous.” Varric rubbed his forehead. He did this when Hawke was being ridiculous, but she knew deep down he liked her best at her most ridiculous. Besides, this certainly wasn’t the strangest thing she’d done. In fact, all things considered throughout her life, climbing in through a window was downright normal.

“Oh, that’s a fancy word. And yes, if you’re not expected to go through the front door, then going through the window is suspicious. Breaking and entering. But I’m allowed in the front door, though it would be a bit suspicious returning to a place I just left, so the window is a less suspicious option. And while I did enter, there was no breaking thanks to my incredible dexterity.” She waggled long fingers to indicate how good she was at picking locks. Which was absolutely excellently and was in no way reduced by how little sense her statement made.

“Right, then. Are you going to tell my why you’re back at the Hanged Man before the asscrack of dawn? Or am I going to have to guess.” Varric stood and began to shuffle the papers and arrange them on his desk, clearly preparing for whatever shenanigans Hawke was gearing up to drag him into.

“My dragon pirate coin is missing,” Hawke announced with the gravity of someone announcing a serious illness or a mass cave-in at the local mine. She was on a roll with the dramatics, so why not keep it going just for fun.

“Your… pirate dragon coin,” Varric repeated back, slowly, his brow furrowing deeper with each word until he ended up squinting at her. “Chuckles, you’re going to have to give some clarification.”

“My pirate dragon coin! The one that I found in that dragon horde that Isabela told me had the sigil of a famous Antivan scratched into it! The one that robbed only from dragons,” Hawke explained empathetically, with some very pointed hand gestures to really jog his memory. “Come now, Varric, you have to remember. I use it for luck when I’m playing again Isabela in Wicked Grace.”

“Oh, that one.” Varric shook his head, but Hawke caught the grin on his face. “Like I told you, I think Rivaini was just winding you up with that story so you’d help her steal more of them.”

“Would Isabela really do that? Just make up lies to get me to steal things?” Her face was the perfect image of shock and horror, before she quickly dropped the expression and waved a hand to move the conversation along. “Whether it belonged to an Antivan Pirate Queen or not, it definitely helps me win at Wicked Grace. And it’s good for everyone when I win at Wicked Grace. Less danger of vomiting on your shoes and kicking you out of your bed.”

“I do like my boots vomit-free,” Varric agreed in the middle of turning his back to grab his coat and throw it over his shoulders. Ah yes, victory, Hawke thought, quite pleased with her efforts.

“And also my reputation as Champion is at stake. Imagine if people thought they could just nick things off me at the bar! A definite decrease in my level of impressiveness.” She stepped towards the door. Varric followed at her heels. It was a familiar scene. Hawke getting entangled into some shenanigans, with Varric at her heels to make sure she came free from all the knots. Or at least didn’t get herself entangled even further.

“Your status as Champion, too? On top of becoming a sudden loser at Wicked Grace? This is quite the slight against you, Hawke. We’re going to have to nip this one in the bud fast.” Varric slung Bianca over his shoulder and locked the door as Hawke made her way down the stairs. “I thought you couldn’t be seen in the bar?”

“Seen coming in! Going out is fine. People leave the bar at this time so I’m just going to blend in with the crowd. Seen but unseen.”

“Oh, now I _see_.” Varric’s voice behind her was warm with amusement.

  
***  
The sky was starting to lighten in the east as they exited the Hanged Man, although the sun had yet to break over the horizon. The city was cast in a greyish light that seemed to wash out both the grime and the color of Lowtown.

The streets were relatively empty, with just a few drunks stumbling home and shop owners preparing their wares for the day, but still Hawke wore a hood over her head to obscure her face. She’d used to joke that someday she’d have to go around wearing a mask in order to walk down the street without getting asked for an autograph, but she’d liked the attention too much to actually do it.

But these days, she never knew if someone was going to ask for an autograph or spit in her face. The hood just made things easier. And less messy. It had started to become habit for her to glance at everyone she passed out of the corner of her eye to see if they recognized her. It was difficult to reconcile. Like being in a room she felt at home at home in, and then having the torch go out, roaches scurrying in all the corners. They’d always been there, but gone unnoticed while her attention was elsewhere.

“So. Any leads on our man, Hawke?” Varric’s voice broke her out of her thoughts, and she glanced down at him with a look on her face. She was still slightly drunk, and trying to remember what had happened when she was even more drunk was going to be a bit of a challenge.  
“Or woman. Or dwarf. Or elf. We shouldn’t make assumptions.”

Hawke wrinkled her nose in thought, but looked more like she was fighting back a sneeze which caused Varric to chuckle. “Just someone suspicious.”

“More suspicious than a rogue, a dwarf, a pirate, a guard captain, and two elves that hang out in a local bar every night?”

“We’re not suspicious, we’re staples!” Hawke’s nose stayed wrinkled. “What about the guy that was sitting at the table behind us? Grey cloak? Tall?”

“I think he’s a trader I saw in the market the other day.” Varric scratched the back of his ear, clearly trying to follow Hawke’s logic. He knew almost everyone who spent time in Hanged Man, so the idea of a suspicious dragon coin thief seemed a little strange to him. “Are you sure you didn’t just drop it when you were attempting to stumble home last night? Lost your coin while you lost your dinner?”

“I didn’t lose my dinner! I kept it very much down, thanks.” Then Hawke clapped her hands together like she’d had a very clever thought. “The market! Varric, that’s where someone would go to sell something legal but valuable.”

 

* * *

 

The market yielded no results. It was emptier than it used to be, and some of the merchants seemed reluctant or even weary to talk to Hawke. Even the ones she’d known for years. Hawke tried to pretend that it didn’t weight sharply against her chest. They left the market having at least managed to grab sweet buns for breakfast as the dark clouds opened up a torrent of rain across the square. The patrons were left scattering as they rushed towards the nearest cover and the shopkeepers closing doors and trying to haphazardly toss tarps up over their wares.

Hawke led the way, a benefit of having longer legs (even though Varric would certainly point out that’s a meager victory when comparing against a dwarf) until she found a nice awning for them to set up under. It was at the very edge of the market in a back alley, looking down at the rest of Kirkwall and the dark storm clouds swirling above the sea. And out past the edge of the sea was Ferelden. Ferelden felt like another life. All of her thoughts and energy were taken by this city. Fitting that the sigil of the city was a dragon because Kirkwall had consumed her entirely.

Thunder clapped and Varric chuckled. Hawke glanced down at him through a mouthful of sweet bun. “Wassfunni?”.

“Just remembering the first time you encountered one of the morning sea storms. You’d been drinking all night and you jumped so high out of bed at the thunder I thought you split your head on the ceiling. Or at least pissed your pants.”

“I absolutely did not piss my pants.” Hawke swallowed to be able to quickly counter. “I have never pissed my pants. Especially not at thunder. I just was not used to summer storms.”

“It was endearing,” Varric said easily. “You looked like you thought a dragon was attacking the keep.”

“Well, that would have been more fun.”

“Except for the part where you were hungover and started gagging over a bucket two minutes later. I think that dragon would have had you for breakfast.”

“I think I could beat a dragon hungover. I’d bet on it.” Hawke stifled a yawn and ran a hand through her short messy hair as she glanced at Varric and then out at sea once more. Kirkwall had changed so much. She had changed so much. But moments like this reminded her of those simpler times where they tramped around the city doing odd jobs for coin during the day and then spending it at the Hanged Man at night.

“Not if you keep yawning like you are now.” Varric reached up a short arm to pat her on the shoulder. “That’s at least number eight. The dragon would have bitten your head off by now.”

“Or maybe she’d start yawning too and we’d take a nice nap together.” Hawke sighed through another yawn. “Which now reminds me that I haven’t slept in nearly a day. Perhaps we’ll have to end our quest unfulfilled.”

“Apparently.” He reached out and pushed against the small of her back to get her to move in the middle of another massive yawn. “But that’s not really what matters in these kinds of stories, Chuckles.”

“Please don’t say ‘it was the friends we made along the way’ or something like that. You know I hate that sort of thing.” Hawke made a face that was a little too exaggerated, which indicated she actually did sort of enjoy those cliches. Or at least when Varric wrote them.

“Nah, more like ‘the quality of the shenanigans of a late night, booze fueled adventure.’ And this one was pretty nostalgic if you ask me,” Varric said, looking up to catch her eye which caused them both to grin. Shenanigans were what they had called the specific sort of nonsensical and yet entertaining late night adventures that had always been part of their friendship. Varric had tried to argue that the word was a cliche but nothing came else came close to accurately describing their adventures. Plus Hawke liked how it sounded. Though their excursions had become less and less frequent as Hawke became Champion. And then after Anders… Well, they tried not to think about that one.

“We had sweet buns and no one died or even bled,” she recounted with a sigh of relief. “By all accounts this was a successful and almost normal night of shenanigans. I feel like I’ve achieved something I felt was impossible. Or maybe I’m just knackered.” Which is probably they were slowly making their way back to the Hanged Man.

“Both?” Varric suggested.

“Both,” Hawke agreed.

 

* * *

 

As soon as they returned to the Hanged Man, Hawke stumbled off though the near empty bar to the stairs with a wave and a promise that “she’d definitely leave room in the bed for him this time.” She didn’t linger. Varric knew Hawke didn’t like the strange feeling of the empty bar in the early day. It just felt… wrong to her. It left both her and all the little flaws of the bar too exposed.

Varric, on the other hand, lived there and was quite used to the place at the off hours. He had to admit that it was a little strange seeing the bar in the light, and maybe sometimes he saw things he’d been too drunk to notice the night before. But that was just part of the charm of the old place. He headed over the bar to get some bread and water, things Hawke would probably want when she woke up still a little hungover. She couldn’t hold her liquor as much as she thought she could.

The girl working at the bar was young and had only been working there a few months. A nice kid, Varric thought, reminded him a bit of Daisy. She wasn’t really suited to the job. She was skittish and didn’t seem like she could handle the crowds of the establishment, even during the morning. However, things had been tough in Kirkwall for the past few years and jobs were getting harder and harder to come by. People either had to take what they could, or leave.

“Ah, Serrah Tethras, good… good morning. Can I get something for you…?” she squeaked out. Varric tried to reassure her with a grin. In response, she fumbled with a cup and dropped it. So much for that.

“Water. Some bread if you have any, doesn’t have to be fresh…,” His voice trailed off as his eyes were drawn to something on her belt in the light through the window. A coin was tied to the young woman’s belt. It was large and ornate, perhaps needlessly so, and etched in the center was a sigil. An Antivan pirate sigil.

“And if you could be a dear and tell me where you found that.” Varric worked to keep his body language amicable, like it was nothing more than a simple curiosity. There must have been an edge that broke through the surface, though, because the young girl cringed and shrunk back. Varric felt a bit like an ass, but not enough that he didn’t want answers.

  
“The Champion… She gave it to me. Said it was worth something and she wanted to thank me for sticking around. Knew I was from Ferelden like she is. And she’s the Champion, Serrah. I couldn’t just refuse...” She trailed off. Or at least Varric thought she did, he was already striding as far as his short legs could take him towards the stairs and up towards his room.

He opened the door to find the curtains drawn and Hawke lying in his bed on her back, one arm flung over her forehead. She wasn’t sleeping. He could tell by the lack of snoring that she always insisted she never did but always did right in his ear. But if she noticed he had entered the room, she made no movement to indicate it. She had to know he knew. How could she not? It wasn’t exactly like she had told the girl to hide it or anything.

He cleared his throat. “Hawke, I know you’re awake.”

“Well, I’m trying not to be. That’s the point, you know,” Hawke replied to the ceiling. Varric sighed. Hawke was hard to get anything out of when she didn’t want to say it. She was good at making herself self seem easy and open but there were parts she kept tightly locked away and mysterious to everyone else. He made his way over to the bed and sat next to her. “Hawke,” he repeated, trying to look past her arm into her face. Hawke feinted, turning so he couldn’t see her eyes even if he tried. “You gonna explain this wild goose chase?”

“Couldn’t it be a wild dragon chase? Or a dog chase? I hate geese. And chasing one just seems pathetic instead of fun.”

“Fine. Care to explain why you had us wandering around Kirkwall in the asscrack of dawn to find something you’d given away and <i>knew</i> you’d given away? You like your games, but shit, that’s not usually your style.” Varric’s tone was level and quiet like the gentle light that managed to break through the fabric of the curtains.

Hawke dropped her arm from her face finally, leaving it to rest on her stomach. Despite the soft light, she suddenly looked tired and haggard. Much older than her barely thirty years. And Varric felt a twist in his stomach as it reminded him of all that she’d been through in the past few years.

“I wanted to spend a bit of time together. Like we did in the old days. Going after someone’s stupid request for a bit of coin or fun. And I figured my request had to count for a little more.” She finally glanced up at him, her eyes meeting his, and he knew her well enough to know that was the truth. He reached out to give her a gentle pat on the shoulder.

“You know you could have just approached me during the evening and asked me to walk around with you, Chuckles. I may be getting old but I’m not that old.” The joke made her grin for a second, which he counted as a victory.

“You’ve been busy. I’ve been busy. We’ve… all been busy. We’ve seen each other but it’s not the same. Everything is always changing around here. Every day it’s something someone has to attend to.”

Varric was silent. She was right. He’d been busy with his networks across Thedas keeping tabs on the situation, Merrill was trying to make sure the elves were safe in the alienage, Aveline was of course trying to keep the peace, and Isabela and Fenris prowled the edges of the city, trying to keep what they could together from the shadows. The carefree moments they’d had like today had been fewer and far between.

“That’s what happens when you try to change things. They change.” Varric gripped her shoulder. “It’s not exactly comforting but well, I figure you’re not exactly in the mood to be fed flowery bullshit.”

She glanced up at him with a ghost of a grin returning to her face, her chin propped up on her hand. “What if I’m hankering for some flowery bullshit. Say something like ‘the world might change but our friendship never will’.”

“I never took you for a romantic.” Varric kicked off his boots and pulled his legs up onto the bed to lay beside her, his broad shoulder touching her thin one.

“I’m deeply layered, Varric. Like a cake. Or a pie? Which has more layers? Suppose it depends on type of cake.” Hawke kicked her boots off and let them drop heavily on the floor before pulling the sheets over her legs.

“Fine, our friendship will never change. But if you stopped snoring, I might like you even more.”

“I do not snore and I’m offended at the very accusation.” Hawke rolled over onto her side away from him.

“And also if you’d stop sleeping diagonally and taking up most of the bed. Oh, and also stop eating things off my plate.”

“Is this a list? Are you going to list everything you want me to change after I said I didn’t want things to change?”

“Nah, just need to keep you humble by reminding you of your foibles..”

“I can live with that,” Hawke yawned. “Never change, Varric.”

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> This is for [theresadraws](http://archiveofourown.org/users/theresadraws/pseuds/theresadraws) for the Hightown Funk Exchange. Thank you for being my guinea pig in my first ever attempt at writing fic. I tried to use some of the words you gave as inspiration for different settings and parts of the story. Sorry that it’s a little rough in some places, I got ill and couldn't revise as much as I wanted but I hope that this at least brought the Hawke/Varric interaction that you were looking for!


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